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Can anyone explain how these numbers are calculated? Are these perhaps just expenses related to lobbying (eg: hiring an external agency, or expenses for a part

Can anyone explain how these numbers are calculated? Are these perhaps just expenses related to lobbying (eg: hiring an external agency, or expenses for a particular lobbying action)? Are salaries of internal staff included? $20m sounds ridiculously low. Giving the magnitude of these efforts, I'd expect the costs for the legal work alone to be far greater than that number.

opportune 8y ago
Lobbying is actually shockingly cheap, that's why it's so effective for those willing to play the game. Look up the stakes (both sides) for net neutrality. Some people got bought for 4-figure sums
- ckastner 8y ago
  Well, not all of lobbying effort can be shockingly cheap. Referring to a quote attributed to Eric Schmidt from a sibling comment: > "The average American doesn't realize how much of the laws are written by lobbyists" You need lawyers for that, and that's certainly not going to be cheap. I don't think it's even remotely possible to do that with the $20m quoted in the article. If a company employs 3 lawyers full-time to work on some lobbying effort/issue XYZ, are their costs reflected in those $20m? What if they hire external lawyers? And that's just the legal side. I can think of all kinds of ancillary costs to lobbying, that it total wouldn't fit an annual budget of $20m. Not even close.
pjc50 8y ago
https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000067823 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00006782... : it seems to be by summing up costs to known lobbying agencies.
- ckastner 8y ago
  Interesting, so lobbying efforts from within the company appear to be unaccounted for. I'd also venture that ancillary costs (especially legal services) are unaccounted for. That really diminishes the meaning of the quoted $20m. For all we know, Google and Facebook could be spending ten times as much on staff lobbyists and lawyers.

opportune 8y ago

Lobbying is actually shockingly cheap, that's why it's so effective for those willing to play the game. Look up the stakes (both sides) for net neutrality. Some people got bought for 4-figure sums

ckastner 8y ago
Well, not all of lobbying effort can be shockingly cheap. Referring to a quote attributed to Eric Schmidt from a sibling comment: > "The average American doesn't realize how much of the laws are written by lobbyists" You need lawyers for that, and that's certainly not going to be cheap. I don't think it's even remotely possible to do that with the $20m quoted in the article. If a company employs 3 lawyers full-time to work on some lobbying effort/issue XYZ, are their costs reflected in those $20m? What if they hire external lawyers? And that's just the legal side. I can think of all kinds of ancillary costs to lobbying, that it total wouldn't fit an annual budget of $20m. Not even close.

pjc50 8y ago

https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000067823 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00006782... : it seems to be by summing up costs to known lobbying agencies.

ckastner 8y ago
Interesting, so lobbying efforts from within the company appear to be unaccounted for. I'd also venture that ancillary costs (especially legal services) are unaccounted for. That really diminishes the meaning of the quoted $20m. For all we know, Google and Facebook could be spending ten times as much on staff lobbyists and lawyers.